The Oregon Labor Dispatch: July 31, 2025
UPCOMING EVENTS
Rally to Support Healthcare Workers at Kaiser
August 7 in Portland
We’re standing in solidarity with 60,000 healthcare professionals nationwide in the fight for living wages, safe staffing, and a real voice on the job. This powerful event will feature healthcare workers, community activists, union siblings, and political leaders all coming together to demand better for caregivers and patients alike. Sign up now and be part of this critical show of solidarity!
Support Sunnyside Farm Workers
August 21 in Portland
Workers at Windmill Mushroom Farm in Sunnyside, Washington, joined by the United Farm Workers, (UFW), announced a boycott of Windmill mushrooms after more than two years of organizing for union recognition. Join PCUN and UFW’s action to support these workers!
Click here for more information.
TAKE ACTION
Reporters and photographers for The Bulletin and Redmond Spokesman in Oregon are negotiating a first contract. The current owners of The Bulletin want to lay off more journalists. Send a letter opposing these cuts and urging the Publisher John Carr and Carpenter Media Group CEO Tim Prince to propose a reasonable wage.
MUST READ
Labor Federation, Unions File New Lawsuit to Defend Federal Workers’ Collective Bargaining Rights
July 30, 2025 | AFL-CIO
Organizations representing working people across the federal government, including professional and technical employees, overseas teachers, and workers in shipbuilding, maritime and construction trades, are suing the Trump administration over its union-busting attack on the collective bargaining rights of federal workers.
OREGON LABOR
On tap for Oregon special session: 6-cent gas tax hike, transit funding and more
July 23, 2025 | OPB
When Gov. Kotek calls lawmakers into a special session in late August, Kotek said she will ask them to enact a six-cent hike to the state’s gas tax, higher registration and titling fees, and a doubling of a tax Oregon workers pay to support public transit.
FEDERAL ATTACKS
GOP says bosses can declare more workers ‘independent contractors’
July 28, 2025 | People’s World
Catering to the capitalist class, the right-wing Republican majority on the House Education and the Workforce Committee voted to let bosses classify more workers as “independent contractors” unable to unionize and ineligible for jobless benefits and workers comp.
US judge blocks Trump-backed Medicaid cuts to Planned Parenthood
July 28, 2025 | Reuters
A federal judge on Monday blocked enforcement of a provision in U.S. President Donald Trump's recently enacted tax and spending bill that would deprive Planned Parenthood and its members of Medicaid funding, saying it is likely unconstitutional.
Trump administration releases billions it withheld from schools
July 25, 2025 | The Washington Post
The Trump administration plans to release more than $5 billion in funding to public schools that it has withheld for nearly a month, a senior administration official said Friday, ending weeks of anxiety and uncertainty for school leaders who had said the freeze jeopardized programs and staffing for the upcoming academic year.
ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS
Wrongly deported migrant Abrego scores legal wins, but remains behind bars
July 23, 2025 | Reuters
Kilmar Abrego, the migrant whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador made him a symbol of President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies, won two key victories in U.S. courts on Wednesday but will remain behind bars on human smuggling charges for now.
THE LABOR MOVEMENT
July 27, 2025 | On The Line
On the Line interviewed Chris Dols, Co-Executive Director of the Federal Unionists Network (FUN). As Trump pursues the billionaire agenda laid out in Project 2025 to dismantle the federal government, FUN is at the forefront of organizing the federal workforce to stop them.